Death's Shattered Crown

Chapter 5

A/n: and things start to get interesting.  I will preface this chapter with the fact that there is no official romance in this story...but it may or may not come later.  Enjoy :)

"Rose, wake up. Come on, I need you to wake up."

Rose began to come to, hearing a deep voice calling her. She opened her eyes, seeing only a bright light and feeling a burning pain. Once the light settled in her eyes Samael's handsome face came into focus. He was leaning over her. She could barely tell who he was, the pain was burning so hot through her.

"I need your permission to take off your clothes so I can see how bad your wounds are. I'm going to need your help to cut them off so I don't hurt you."

Rose flinched at his words as much as the pain. She didn't want him to take off her shirt and pants, but she supposed there was no choice. She felt cold and knew she was losing blood. She nodded, and he grabbed a knife. She watched, wide-eyed, as he grabbed her shirt and cut down the arm, then down the side, careful not to touch her with the blade. Then he slowly did the same down her pants. He set the knife down to the side of the table she was laying on, and carefully peeled off first her pants, then her shirt. He situated her cut clothes so she was still mostly covered except for the parts where she was injured, and she couldn't help but feel grateful for that. Even so, she looked away, not wanting to see any reaction he might have to her now.

Sizzling pain bit into her as he touched her leg wound. Looking down, she gasped at how awful it looked. Blood was caked down her long leg, and there was a gaping wound in her thigh. Looking higher, she tried to spot the wound in her side, but it was too far under her arm.

"The one on your leg was just a nick. It looks like it went clean through. Lift your arm for me so I can see the other one."

She sank in relief that it wasn't serious. She lifted her arm and blushed when she felt him trail a cold finger down it. Cool relief settled in her body as the pain finally receded. He sighed heavily.

"This one is more serious. I'm going to need to flip you over to see if it hit a blood vessel or went too deep for me to fix. Prepare yourself. I took your pain so it won't hurt as much."

She sucked in a deep breath and waited for him to flip her over. He did so very slowly and carefully, holding her arm in place. Thanks to his ministrations, she felt no pain as he did so. After she was flipped, he checked her wound and sighed. She held her breath anxiously.

"I was wrong. This is also just a grazing wound. I couldn't tell before. I'm going to begin bandaging them now."

Rose sighed in relief. She was incredibly lucky neither were more complicated wounds. She winced slightly as he began cleaning the wound in her side, by her ribs. She had no warning before he began sewing her wound closed, and she yelped at her surprise and pain.

"It would have hurt more if you were expecting it."

Rose just grunted, not in the mood for words. He worked silently for a few minutes until he tied off the end of the thread and removed his hands from her. As he stood to flip her back over, he lightly ran his fingertip over the scars on her back. She flinched, the touch unexpected. Though she knew exactly what he was seeing, as she had looked at them many times in the mirror herself.

There were several long, light-colored scars running up the length of her back. The longest and ugliest one had almost killed her. It ran from her hip all the way up to the base of her neck. And, if that wasn't enough, there were also burn scars up and down her skin as well. Not to mention the faint scarring on the thigh he wasn't patching up spelling out "freak". If he could see her x-rays, he'd also know about all the broken bones she'd gotten at that point in her life. However, to her great relief, nobody knew all the details. Not even her parents.